rona45

Going against the liberal fanatics would be using common sense which is becoming a rare comodity this past 5 years. Look at the past 5 years and see how much this country has gained with the new ideas. How quickly employment has jumped, How fast the public has gobbled up electric cars is another. All those shovel ready jobs are highly visible too. All the new taxes that will save us money are another. There seemed to be a lot of people criticizing the old ways in the last years with their brand new college degrees that neglected to learn one lesson. That is called experience. Without it their education with all the new ideas has proved pretty worthless and just hot air.

hartman75

Actually Phil, carbon dioxide is not the only byproduct produced by burning coal. When burned, coal releases lead, arsenic, formaldehyde, dioxins, benzene, acid gases, radium, uranium and mercury into the air, land and water. According to the American Lung Assoc., “400 plants in 46 states spew 386,000 tons of 84 separate hazardous air pollutants.” Burning coal is not as harmless as Phil wants us to believe.

Experience is useless, rona, when nothing is learned from past mistakes. Republicans embrace the same old sources of energy – sources that have decimated segments of our wildlife, contaminated the water supply, laid waste to vast areas of our country and forced us to adopt foreign relation strategies including war which has given rise to generations of anti-U.S. militants in the Middle East. Like most recent Republican strategies, their energy policy is an abject failure. We must continue to transition away from fossil fuels as a primary energy source.

ThomEE

The world has warmed about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. That may not sound like much, but we’re already starting to see that Climate change isn’t just bad for polar bears. It’s bad for humans — for a lot of reasons. First, climate change increases the risk of extreme weather events like heat waves, droughts, and intense storms. Rising seas are already damaging homes and businesses near the water. But it doesn’t stop there. When it’s hot, the quality of the air we breathe gets worse, and that's a threat to our health. Ocean acidification, the result of oceans absorbing excess carbon pollution from the air, could destabilize fisheries and much of the oceanic food chain. It's widely believed that climate change will encourage the expansion of disease-bearing pests into new areas, like the ticks that carry Lyme disease. Wherever we live, climate change poses risks to both our economy and our way of life — and the time to start solving this problem is now.

rangeral

ThomEE - the Earth has been cooling since the Miocene geologic era. During that period, millions of species evolved and died off. No humans were present at that time.

Coal was the lifeblood of this country for many years and supported the Industrial revolution right up to present times. Like many other industries it has evolved and taken steps to improve as technology improves.

The pseudo scientists and environmentalists do not have solutions to the current environmental nor can they forecast what is really going to happen. Their mantra is do as I say, not as I do - Al Gore for example.

The Sierra Club has not supported a single mining project in its entire history. Yet they live in houses built from the forest, drive cars that come from iron, aluminum and plastics, use computers, use electric power, etc.

A single major volcanic eruption spews more CO2 than the entire US in a year. What's the solution?

cfh101proof

I don't know but Phil might be an extremist for saying coal gets a bad rap and possibly a racist for not agreeing with the Obama regime. Maybe if 25,000 scientists with phd's decided they were going to sue Al Gore then maybe global warming isn't your fault, Phil. I suppose you believe those who want to save our planet are actually lying to us in hopes of creating a carbon tax that will make these rich guys more rich. Silly conspiracy wacko. Enough sarcasm, Phil is actually correct about everything he said. He knows it, I know it because we have read the real research and coal is clean burning today. We should be using the sun and wind but with oil to burn there is money to be made. They haven't figured out how to claim the sun's energy and sell it to us but they will.

allenlyon

Coal gets a bad rap and it deserves a bad rap. It makes for a bad neighbor when you live near a mine, have to suffer the consequences of the environmental degradation from the mining and burning, work in amine, breathe the exhaust from the power plants, or try to enjoy a clear sky. WWJD? He would go clean, and he told me so.

rangeral

ThomEE - what is your solution to immediately replace all the coal energy with something else - and at the same or reduced cost? Talk is cheap - you sound like Al Gore. Are you living off the grid? I doubt it and I'm sure you have a car, use electricity and don't drink out of pond. What are you doing to reduce energy use and are you a smoker?

NoBleedingHeartHere

Right on target Phil. hartmann liberals cry wolf . . . constantly. CO2 is a pollutant now, according to the EPA goofs, and you hartmann, lumping it in with your insignificant list of other pollutants. I mean really? So what if a lib vegetarians vegetables wouldn't exist without CO2? You guys cry about how destitute the future is going to be for our children, yet you don't blink an eye when you waste water, a finite resource, on a meaningless lawn, play your silly golf game upon grounds where water is profusely wasted every single day. Phil's right, hartmann, and once again you are barking at the moon, ad nauseum.

NoBleedingHeartHere

Environmentalists, to include the environmental alarmists on this thread, cannot grasp how essentially insignificant the human factor is in the cyclic processes that have occurred throughout Earth's history. What is so absolutely ludicrous is the arrogance of these people to think that humans make any difference at all on the face of this Earth. You can be certain that when Mother Earth wants to get rid of humanity, she will do it in the blink of an eye, think dinosaurs. Your panic about climate change is irrelevant. Yeah we should pursue green energy being comfortable with the decades that the process will take. But don't try to frame it as some big noble effort like "Saving our Planet". That's a joke.

hartman75

"What is so absolutely ludicrous is the arrogance of these people to think that humans make any difference at all on the face of this Earth."

Everything on this earth is interconnected in some manner or form, so yes NBHH, each and every one of us actually DO make a difference, even if that’s not our intent. Arrogance is a great term to describe those who, like you, share the erroneous (and ludicrous) belief that actions don’t matter.

For someone who lives in a bunker full of loaded weapons for self defense, ready to fight against an imaginary government occupation determined to convert us all into socialists, I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that you have such a grim view of life NBHH.

“He knows it, I know it because we have read the real research and coal is clean burning today.” I love to read about how clean burning coal is today cfl101proof. Where did you find the information?

NoBleedingHeartHere

hartmann, we have taken substantial care of the "dirty coal" issue. Operative word, "scrubbers". So you see it's not necessary to run in circles in the manner of a panicked hippie shouting "the sky is falling". When there is a problem, at least here in the West, we take care of it. Won't do you much good to panic though. China, Indochina, and East Asia are still pumping out the dirty air. Do something about that hartmann, instead of demonizing your own country that, at least until Obama, has addressed the environmental problems in a measured way. Obama just throws the baby out with the bath water by seeking to "necessarily skyrocket" affprdable energy for the sole purpose of making it impractical. A real dummy we have for a President.

hartman75

rangeral, it’s extremely odd that a person who claims to have: “built my own wind turbine and purchased …solar panels, so my home is electrical energy neutral ... I have a geothermal heating and cooling system … recycle virtually everything possible and …grow most of our own fruit and vegetables...” is not more supportive of those who desire to move away from using non-sustainable energy sources. My experience has been that individuals who have discovered the benefits of using solar, wind and thermal energy are very encouraging to those who express a desire to move away from fossil fuels. You, on the other hand, are derisive of anyone who suggests we should explore sustainable forms of generating energy. Why?

blasphemer

"What is so absolutely ludicrous is the arrogance of these people to think that humans make any difference at all on the face of this Earth."...If we could make the earth a better place by eliminating only one species, then what species would that be? Homo Sapiens...of course.

NoBleedingHeartHere

blasphemer, the previous sentence was plainly contiguous with the quote you used, "how essentially insignificant the human factor is in the cyclic processes that have occurred throughout Earth's history". You take ALL of Earth's history, factor in repeated naturally occurring runaway greenhouse effects, ice ages (Snowball Earth being the most profound example), asteroid strikes, and volcanic eruptions, it's then immediately obvious that the human factor isn't so much as a blip on the chart. It's like saying an anthill will destroy Antarctica! We are germs. As compared to every thing else that has damaged Earth down through the ages, we are nothing. Earth will suffer another cataclysmic event, and she won't even remember that we existed.

blasphemer

NoBleedingHeartHere

A concession I'll make is that I am giving humans way too much importance when comparing us to germs. But so are you when comparing humans to cancer. Humans are blundering fools that can't get out of our own way, especially people like Al Gore. Case in point, enough of us actually re-elected Obama. Talk about blunders.

Our overblown delusions of self-importance are all that is driving this global warming, climate change ruse. To an entity viewing us from a distance, one who actually could destroy a planet, our vanity would be a great source of amusement.

NoBleedingHeartHere

And I must admit blasphemer, that it's not amusing watching people such as yourself (That would certainly include Gore & Obama, albeit all of the panic-stricken warmists), who disregard the fact that Earth events are cyclic, that they happen with or without the human factor. When it's all said and done, it doesn't matter that we exist or not. Earth has been beset with apocalypse after apocalypse, and is yet to be beseiged, again and again. How about we just clean up our own messes in a measured way, without going berserk & "necessarily skyrocketing" energy costs (quote Obama)? Don't think we are so important & all-powerful, because we are not!